Heaven Movie Review

Subtitle: A Ridiculously In-Depth Analysis of the Heaven Movie that Nobody Asked For. But Here It Is. Blame Lifetime.

Kitty takes Heaven upstairs to show her the new room that's been set up for her. In the book Kitty didn’t even let Heaven have her own room at first. She made her sleep in the same bed Kitty shared with Cal. Right in between them because she knows how “hill girls get urges.” This lasts a couple of nights.

Cal figures out how to rectify the situation of having a teenage girl sleep in between him and his wife by making Kitty jealous. He snuggles up to Heaven on the third night and Kitty kicks her out, accusing Heaven of trying to seduce her man. Heaven sleeps on a sofa bed in the living room for a week until Cal goes to buy her new furniture and sets up a spare room for her. Kitty pretty much fights him the whole way.
Movie Kitty is very excited that everything in Heaven’s new room, including the sheets, bed and comforter, are all “brand new” and “clean, clean, clean.” Heaven replies, “It’s really lovely, Kitty. Thank you.”

Kitty slinks down on the bed and asks with sinister sweetness if Heaven could please call her Mama. Heaven says, “Okay, Mama,” but in a joking, awkward way. Book Kitty did want Heaven to call her “Mother” and she did get upset when Heaven slipped up.
Kitty starts bouncing on the bed and giggling. Heaven joins in and starts laughing for the 30 seconds that Kitty seems like she might genuinely be fun to live with.
That comes to an end when Kitty shows Heaven some new clothes that she bought for her. Heaven immediately forgets about what Kitty requested and says, “This is so generous, Kitty.”
Kitty is taken aback and gives Heaven a look like, “What did you just say?” Realizing her mistake, Heaven sheepishly corrects herself. Kitty is temporarily placated and tells her, “That's right. I'm your new Mama now.”

“Welcome to your new ,” Kitty says to Heaven with a radiant smile and a menacing giggle. Tony also says, "Welcome to your new life," in the “Dark Angel” trailer. It’s the V.C. Andrews equivalent of the Chinese Curse, “May you live in interesting times.” A double-meaning hidden within seemingly innocuous words, because "interesting" can be either positive or negative.

It’s actually pretty clever since Heaven does get bounced between “new lives” a few times. Annie and Leigh also get introduced to “new lives" in their respective movies.
I’m semi-impressed, Lifetime. You do know what a theme is and how to carry it into other movies. I’m betting Logan also says this to Heaven in “Fallen Hearts” when he proposes or when they get married. Then Tony says it to Annie in “Gates of Paradise”, and younger Tony says it again to Leigh in “Web of Dreams" to bring it full circle back to the beginning.

Kitty gives Heaven a big hug before beginning to disrobe her. She’s talking about scrubbing all that hillbilly grime off Heaven and how she’ll have to burn her clothes. Heaven tries to resist having her dress taken off (which is actually really nice), but Kitty says, “Don’t be shy. We’re family here.”
Cal certainly knows how to blur family lines.

Kitty wants Heaven to get into a hot bath so she can get a real deep clean. “Every crack and crevice,” Kitty says with another spine-chilling giggle. I thought this would lead to the Bath from Hell in the book. Book Kitty wouldn’t let Heaven sleep on anything until she had cleansed her - thoroughly. They do incorporate a bath scene later on so I’ll go into more detail when we get there.
A month later Heaven is wiping at a glass table in the living room and shakes her aching hand to show she’s been at it for awhile. Kitty comes in, wearing her dental hygienist uniform, and is unhappy with what she sees.
She resprays the table a bunch of times with glass cleaner and starts redoing Heaven's work. She also tells Heaven that she has to redo the bathrooms again because she didn’t do a good enough job yesterday.
This is very in character for her because Book Kitty was a fanatic about cleanliness. She had a long list of chores that Heaven was supposed to do every day. If Heaven didn’t do them properly then Kitty would make her redo them. She would also hit her if she did something incorrectly.

Kitty leaves for work and tells Heaven to be good. Cal comes in to sit at his typewriter that's set up on the dining room table. He sees Heaven cleaning and says, “Hey there, Cinderella."

He tells her he doesn’t think Kitty should be making her clean like she is. Heaven replies that he should butt out because the last time he said something Kitty got really mad.
This is true to both Cal and Kitty’s characters in the book. Cal would grow a pair once in a blue moon and come to Heaven’s defense over something, and Kitty would get mad about it. Then she'd usually use sex to get him to forgive her. Once he got laid he'd forget all about whatever had caused their fight in the first place.
Movie Cal openly acknowledges who wears the pants in his relationship with Kitty. Considering you add no money to the household, Cal, I would say Kitty is entitled to her ownership of the pants in your relationship. You better just make sure she stays interested in what’s in your pants while you write the next Great American Novel.

Book Cal was also a spineless jellyfish who rarely stood up to his wife. He did it often enough that Heaven viewed him as her savior, but most of the time he didn't speak up and was very weak.

Up Next in Part 10:

Heaven and Cal show off their best jazz cleaning hands!

I discover the most popular soap in the Willies!

Kitty is the prettiest Kitty of them all!

Heaven Movie Review - Part 9